As a gamer, I am always looking for interesting game aids—stuff I can use in my game to make it more interesting or fun for other players. This generally means nice maps, fake skulls, "bone" dice, interesting playing cards, good artwork, the right background music, etc.... But what's more rare than a good game prop is a way to make fresh ideas from scratch for new game sessions. A GM can only come up with so many ideas before he needs inspiration.

Enter The Storymatic.

it's a way to get the creative juices flowing again. Not sure what happens next? Pull a card.

Revenge!

Aw snap! Revenge it is. But who is seeking revenge? And why? I dunno, but Storymatic can help here too.

Farmer and Prisoner of War

OK. Not two traits I'd have put together, but let's think it through. Our story is one of revenge by a farmer who either is or ws at one time a prisoner of war. Did our character ever do anything that might have such an unintended consequence? Well, there was that one time when he went into the great and vile kingdom of Krith to free prisoners of war. Why would a farmer care, especially if he were one that were freed?

Got it! His wife was a prisoner. She was one that didn't make it out. The farmer now blames the hero for his wife's untimely death during the daring rescue. He has spent countless months preparing his retribution and now the trap is to be sprung! Voilà! The game has a plot, the heroes have something to fear, and the GM has something to work with.

Writing aids, plot devices, and creatively inspirational tools are a great addition to any GM's tool chest.

Things that you might also wanna check out for GMing inspiration

• Getting The Party Started from RPG MUSINGS (rpgmusings.com)
• Back To Basics Part 1: Adventure Structures (campaignmastery.com)
• Creative Writing Ideas - How to be Creative Writing Ideas Stuff? (education9.wordpress.com)
• Writing Exercise: Show Don't Tell (reflectionsinapuddle.wordpress.com)

The world has a way of kicking me in the face. It waits 'til I'm smiling, naively staring at a promising horizon, imagining all the perfection and joy I have coming to me. Then...BAM! My lip is bleeding, eyes watering so bad I can't see the color of my own shirt, let alone a promising horizon.

I am stupid, though. I forget how it happens. Every time I see that horizon, I stare expectantly when a smarter man would just duck. Thats my curse, you know. Rather than floundering through life in the fetal position, I stand tall —brave and dumb—for the next kick.

But maybe it's my gift, too. I allow myself to be happy in the face of so many reasons not to. Maybe that's how I kick the world back in its face.

You can kill me, world, but you can't defeat me.

If you don't know what Filemover or Lifeline are, don't be surprised. This is an inside joke.

This, too, has passed.  Like all things doomed to die,
Filemover's hundred moving parts in a thousand pieces lie.
Tales be told and songs be sung,
The drum be beat and the bell be rung.
We have crushed Filemover and seen it driven before us,
Let the lamentations of its women be our cheerful chorus!
"It's dead!  It's dead!", let them wail; let them moan.
The crops it now reaps are the seeds its incompetence hath sown.
For my part, I lift a cup in celebration of its fate,
And pray that Lifeline, its better son, ne'er warrants this much hate.

We are all guilty of it. Facebook, Slashdot, Twitter, Digg, Reddit and other social media sites have made it easy (trivial, even) to share links to good content on the web and like good consumers, we've done as we are told. We see it. We like it. We link to it on our 8 favorite sharing sites. We continue surfing the web. And isn't that awesome? I mean, we get to show our 200 closest friends exactly what we are reading in the expectation that they will appreciate it. The greatest compliment, of course, is when one of those close friends re-shares the same link. Oh joy! We inspired our friend to show others what we showed them!

I love being able to one-click-share things I enjoy with my friends, but I regret what it's done to me. It's turned me into a medium and turned me away from being a source. Sharing is wonderful. It's immanently human, and I don't mean to suggest we should stop. But I do mean to ask what happened to all the great original content. My friends share link after link and they have stopped (mostly) sharing the contents of their own minds. I miss that. I have smart, funny, insightful friends and I have always enjoyed hearing their thoughts in the past. Sadly, Facebook has nearly ended that. All I get now are links to others' content, snippets of mundane life ("Bob checked in to Starbucks" and "Sally likes Farmville"), and the occasionally clever, but ultimately meaningless, status update. I appreciate knowing what my friends like and what they are doing, but I appreciate more knowing why they like something and why they are doing something.

Take a moment to post a short paragraph or two talking about something original. I understand writing can be hard to start. Maybe I can help. I'll post four writing ideas below. Take one. Hell, take all four! Just take a moment to post something on the web that came entirely from your own head. If you do, I promise to link to it. ;-)

• Look around you. Pick one thing (a strawberry, an interesting chair, your favorite shirt, the waiting room, or the dream home in your mind) and describe it. Make sure you are specific. Describe the colors, the textures, the shapes and smells, the taste of whatever you've picked as the object of your writing attention.
• Think back to something memorable. Describe it narratively. Think about your last day on a job, the time you went to a store with your grandmother, the crucial sixty seconds of a game, the first time you saw your child, or the peaceful lunchtime walk you took. Pick something, and share it. Talk about how you felt, what you enjoyed or hated about it, or how it impacted your life.
• Pick something you know how to do well. Explain the process of doing it. Whether it's setting up a JBoss server, making an origami swan, fighting for freedom, running for public office, linking your blog to Facebook, or buying a car, there is someone who will benefit from what you know. Share your knowledge and make the world better. Be specific. Don't forget any steps or assume any knowledge. Step through the process procedurally.
• Think about something you believe, but cannot prove fully. Explain why you believe it. Do you be believe cell phones cause cancer? That America is on the wrong path? That roses are overrated. Adults are just obsolete children? That Tom's blog is a waste of time? That Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the best show ever? That XHTML2 is better than HTML5? Well then, take the time to explain why you believe it and how that believe changes what you do.

I look forward to seeing what you write. Now, I'm off to Red Lobster, where I will take a pic and post it on Facebook with little surrounding content. I mean, let's face it. MY mundane activities are interesting, right?

The strength of my youth
bends to the vengeance of age
and time poorly spent

   -Tom Caudron
   -Inspired by my current post-op condition.

Plugged in. Online
Jacked up. Fucked up.
T1 line-in. Media upchuck.
Mankind. MetalSoul.
Info Blackhole.
Lord Almighty,
Flood this rathole.
Byte-sized. ArkSafe.
Hi-Tech Street Waif
Who cares anyway?
Why should I pray?
Lead in. Lead out.
Have faith. Have doubt.
Talk loud. Don't shout.
Sine wave. Crest. Bough.
Christ when? Christ now!
Windows. Intel.
Dead soul. Oh well.
Hatred and sin.
Grow weak. Grow thin.
Love to hate me.
Ricki Lake me.
Let life linger
And infestate me.

   -Tom Caudron
   -Inspired by my job. Maybe I need a new one?

I betray'd a fragile solace in my longing for thy love.
Tho' devotion in thee's dawning by the touch of Lord above.

Hear the Angels to thee speaking; listen closely to their song,
As our passions sing superior to songs of ages gone.

Listen to the sparrow singing; lingering on the sweetest note.
Listen to my soul beseeching; pledging love in poems wrote.

A gentle rustle and a ripple washes from the sea ashore.
And I watch in sullen silence as I often have before.

In a wild, foolish wonder I would tell thee how I feel.
All the love within me spoken, while before thee I would kneel.

But just as lips are parting to, in broken silence, speak,
A babbl'd blurting issues forth, yet not the words I seek.

My love then still remains a secret by the donning of a mask.
All the soul within me burning, begging to complete my task.

Slumbering still, I'll pray thy love awakens at my sight,
As the dawning of the morning, when the darkness fades to light.

See the world around thee blossom; for our love's ordain'd to be.
Open up thy eyes, belov'd; open up thy eyes and see!

Dost thou love me now, my darling? Would'st thou ever love me true?
Shall my love, in lonely labour, ever more than look at you?

Yet until thy answer's clear, I'll be pleas'd to stand a'nigh.
Staring at thy buttress'd heart and longing for thy open'd eye.

   -Tom Caudron
   -Inspired by my wife, Denise, on the occasion of our first summer friendship

Because I'm more active feeling and I am writing again. Damn surgery took it outta me!.

The concrete world around us predates us and inspires us. The world of sense---of streams and streets and stars---speaks to us in a way that our dry, a priori logic cannot match. This is the language of poetry and parable, of fable, legend and myth, of anecdote and allegory. This is the language we naturally speak, and yet many beginning writers choose the language of the prosaic and barren world of logic over that of this fertile and variegated world of the senses.

If it is good say that that a man loves, how much better to say that his "luve is like a red red rose," as Burns did? If it is necessary to compare two virtues, how better than to say that they are "as moonlight unto sunlight or as water unto wine," as Tennyson proclaimed? Through these literary devices we begin to understand in a penetrating way that logic plainly cannot convey. The objects of our imagery cannot be preempted with the constructs of our logic. People from Kierkegaard to Jesus saw this dilemma and avoided it through their use of the parable form. This is because the parable is at heart a mythic form that energizes and brings to life its themes.

Belief arises out of experience. Our lives are ripe with a narrative quality through which we interpret our world. It is not through dry text but through the image of Jesus hanging broken from the cross that Christians understand salvation, through images of burning bushes and vast deserts that Jews find identity as a community of believers, and through images of the Gautama Buddha sitting peacefully beneath the Bodhi Tree that Buddhists come to understand the maya. This strong literary tradition ought not to be dismissed too quickly by the beginning writer. Ralph Waldo Emerson said in The Natural History of Intellect, that "a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers." The legend of King Arthur and Sir Lancelot tells more about our understanding of love and loyalty than a library of psychological treatise'.

Imagery is about specificity. To speak of "fruit" is to be stingy. What image does that conjure? What shape? What color? What kind? These are the questions to answer. To speak of "apples" or "pears" is to be generous---more so if you speak of the smooth rigidity of the apple's surface, the acidic sweetness of its taste, or the blood-red hue interrupted only by a single small-toothed bite from its otherwise inviolate side. To say, "I walked," is mere disappointment when it could be said that, "I wandered lonely as a cloud," as William Wordsworth did in his famous poem of that same name. Had Romeo merely said that Juliet was his most beloved person, we would be left wanting more. Instead Shakespeare, in his intense Romeo and Juliet, told us of Romeo's love for Juliet through this language of imagery when he said, "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."

The beginning writer must seek the right image for the context. It's like making a good stew---ground cumin may seem the best spice, but until the cook tastes it, he will never realize the need for paprika. This is perhaps the most difficult task of writing. For this, there are no rules. There exists no tome of ancient, codified wisdom ready to yield answers to the inquisitive student. To be understood, it must be done. Just as in cooking, writing---the act itself---is the best teacher of its methodology, its idiosyncrasy, and its wonder. A well placed onomatopoeia, a fitting metaphor, and a specific time in a specific place are the tools of the good writer. Jessamyn West said it well: "There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist ... lead through ... the jungles of the self, the world, and of craft." Literature is not mere words. Literature is not mere logic. Literature is not mere communication. It is all these things rolled into a bundle we call art. It speaks to us of ourselves and our world.

Fires rise bringing smoke to fearful and
darkening skies which scream through choking smog
felling the highest gods in heaven with
the distorted flames of their reckless fury.
      The stone bridge watches yet never judges.

Crowds pulsate in throbbing abandon of
principles of kindness. The blood red beard
of conflagration and terror rages
the collective pulsing heart of spiteful
and petty men seeking liberation
amidst Chthonic storms. "Freedom," they cry,
while red tears wash away decades of filth
and oppression. Together at last for
chaos errands and pitfall dreams; their years
of preaching love left them solitary.
      The stone bridge watches yet never judges.

Yellow, orange, and bluish grays gild the
sky while sad and desperate men float on
hopes with dowsing droplets which the flames drink
haughtily. Paucities of faith and hope
and love are glaringly betrayed in the
crimson shade of an earthly apocalypse.
No trumpets blare now; only the clanging
and banging of screaming bells sound sharply
to the deaf ears of a panicked throng of
satyrs. Guilt still falls from a forgotten
firmament onto the heads of every
ordinary man among them. Drinking
from a goblet of insanity in
a feast of culpability hosted
by Mammon the dead hearted, they cry, "More!"
      The stone bridge watches yet never judges.

Who among them would betray the frantic
anarchy of disaster while buzzards
of revolution brought low the glory
of ancient houses, elder families,
and ruling scepters? Who among them would
resist quitting substance for pure shadow
when the shadow seemed to promise so much?
The din of alarm is slowly replaced
by the expanding moan of funeral
chorus rising from the damned mouths of men,
supplanting the screams for more with cries
of pity, regret, and indistinct shame.
After the fires, new houses are carved
from greater stones with greater craftsmanship
for greater glory. Elder families
resurface and smoke merely mates with clouds.
      The stone bridge watches yet never judges.

   -Tom Caudron
   -Inspired by the painting of the same name by Joseph Mallord William Turner: